Samir Chaudry
Appearances
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And the goal of a YouTube creator, which is also probably the goal of any startup founder, is to identify what the audience is reacting to and then double down in that direction.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
the video game reward of high viewership or virality, I think that's where you're going to get pretty lost over long periods of time. So Colin and I try and take a step back and go, first of all, what is our degree of difference? What makes us unique? What's our unique perspective? And what makes us uniquely human? It's a weird thing to say, but it is something that we think about.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And we try and lean into situations, formats, content that can bring that out. Because at the end of the day, the reality is today, content formats are not defensible. Personality and perspective is. And I think that's the most important thing that everyone can do to position themselves for the future.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, I think it's, it's, uh, We often talked about this as a concept of content market fit, which is three things have to be checked. One is what you want to make. That's actually something that it sounds ridiculous, but a lot of people skip that step. It's like, do I actually want to make this? Because to do it successfully, you're going to be making it for years and years and years.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And you have to just love the process of making it. So do I want to make it? The second is, is there an audience for this? Is this content that somebody actually wants? Which is another honest question you have to ask yourself. And then the third is, does this match the platform's wants and needs? And actually, those three can evolve over time.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Just because they're all checked and green light on all three one week does not mean that it's the same thing the next month. Those all kind of oscillate and change. Again, if you look at where YouTube is heading, even with their announcements that made on YouTube two weeks ago, you can gather that they are heading in the direction of more and more connected TV viewership.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Connected TV viewership means 30 plus minute videos that are organized into series that can be watched. They launched a new UI update for connected TV that's organized by seasons and episodes. And you look at that, it looks just like Netflix. So what the platform is essentially signaling to all creators is we're looking for serialized formats that look and feel like streamers.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, well, yeah, it's a weird, like it's always weird to go to companies as they like are announcing their new products, right? Because you can't, you have to take a step back and go like, how much of this is practical? How much of this is conceptual? Like the Meta Orion glasses, I think are a really great example. Like if you think about wearables,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Maybe. I don't know if adding more crew is the answer to solving a content problem. I really don't believe that. I think if it's warranted, sure. If your show or format requires crew and a specific type of camera because you want it or a specific type of audio because it's what the format is asking for, sure. But one of the most prolific creators on YouTube right now is Ryan Trahan.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
He can't make a video that does under 10 million views, but he shoots the majority of his stuff with his iPhone.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
and just by himself um so you know we you also have to take a step back and go what what has he done really successfully again his unique personality his unique perspective that's an intangible some people have it some people don't um that's an intangible he's also been on the platform for a very long time and gone through multiple iterations he loves the video making process um
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
But he has found himself into some really successful formats. He does these formats where he tries different types of Airbnbs and those have taken off. And the goal of a YouTube creator, which is also probably the goal of any startup founder, is to identify what the audience is reacting to and then double down in that direction.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And again, that's directly aligning with the world of where content is moving and where... audiences are moving to go, if I watch Ryan Trahan, I tried OMG, or I stayed in OMG Airbnbs on my connected TV, the next video I'm going to jump to is Ryan Trahan, I stayed in underground hotels. It's like, okay, I stayed, I stayed, I stayed. Now this is a format that I'm watching.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
They're all around the same length. They all have the same host. They all start the same way. It's familiar. And I think familiarity is a... is a metric that is incredibly important in the world that we are moving in. In a world where we have an abundance of choice, familiarity is going to win.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, I think the unfortunate reality is actually that in content that does work. And I'm not saying that that is a positive. I think as a creative, you should have integrity to be like, I'm not just going to take someone's idea one for one. But the reality of YouTube is like the flip side of what I just mentioned of familiarity is that you're not releasing anything into a vacuum.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
You're releasing something into a content ecosystem where there's four different ways that audiences discover content on YouTube. The first is search. And I think probably people over, maybe think about search too much. It's actually pretty nominal how many people find videos through search. The next is browse. That means you open up the YouTube app and what's on my home feed?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Do you remember Google Glass, like trying Google Glass for the first time? I do. You know, that was probably 10 years ago. And this, this like exploration of like, whoa, is this the future? We're all going to be wearing these glasses. And we look like 10 years down the line and we're, we're still here where like, not everyone is wearing glasses, but wearable tech is more popular now, right? Like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
What is YouTube giving me right now? It could be creators I'm subscribed to. It could be a video similar to one that I watch, but browse is the next one. The next one is suggested, which is I'm watching a YouTube video and then on the right side, I get suggested other content that's similar. And then the fourth way is the shorts feed.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So going through the shorts feed, you might discover a creator and then go to their channel and find their videos. When you think about like, why does that work? It's largely because of the world of, again, familiarity. When you go onto the YouTube homepage and you just watched this POV, I'm an entrepreneur. Now you see another one that's POV, I'm an entrepreneur in Los Angeles.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And it is someone taking it and giving their own unique spin on it. But the reason that works is because the audience is familiar with that format. They had a good experience with that format. And the YouTube algorithm is fully designed for viewer satisfaction, right? Like if you just think about how is it designed, it's like, did this person enjoy it?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And if they did, let's give them something else that we predict they will enjoy. And the metrics to track there are click-through rate. Was it a high click-through rate of they saw this thumbnail and they clicked into it? And then did they watch for a long time, average view duration?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And those two stats are going to give you the understanding if the viewer was satisfied, and then more content is going to surface like that. the reason you see people saying, I'm not just going to make my own format. I'm going to look at what works on YouTube and try and piggyback off of that. Cause that's like the quickest path to audience growth on YouTube, plain and simple.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Um, but again, I would say like as a, as a creative coming into the space, like I, I don't really have the stomach for that. And it probably like stunts our growth because it would be easier to just look at what's working and do that. Um, And we had a great conversation with Austin Kleon, who wrote the book, Steal Like an Artist. And I really believe in the principles that he talks about in that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah. I think there's a difference between good theft and bad theft. There's a really simple term that he talks about of even yourself being copied of... the elevator test.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Like if you get into an elevator with someone who copied your work or, uh, would they pat you on the back or would they punch you in the face where it's just like, uh, like we all know the feeling of if someone like take something we do, uh, and you're like, that's like way too similar to what I do. Uh, you would, you would be upset if they walked into an elevator elevator with you.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And then, you know, the feeling of someone who is inspired by you and they, they make something and you're like, dude, great, great job with that. Um, that's like a really, uh, simple, simplified version of it. Um, but you know, the, the other thing he talks about is, um, in the beginning, and we did this as creators, plain and simple.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Like when we first started as the Colin and Samir channel, we were desperately trying to be like Casey Neistat. I think everyone was at that era. Uh, he was like this amazing daily vlogger, uh, was able to tell stories about his daily life that, uh, it just felt like no one had ever seen before and everyone wanted to be like him. And we tried our best and failed miserably.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And I think familiarity is a metric that is incredibly important in the world that we are moving in. In a world where we have an abundance of choice, familiarity is going to win. The reality is today, content formats are not defensible. Personality and perspective is. And I think that's like the most important thing that everyone can do to position themselves.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
He's a much better storyteller and also lived a much more interesting life. But the interesting part about that is what Austin Kleon talks about. It's like you're taking apart the car. So you're like reverse engineering this thing you really like and starting to feel what it feels like to make that. And a lot of times creative people need like an impetus of like, what do I make?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Like watches are more popular, rings are more popular, wristbands. And so it is moving in that direction. I think the Ray-Ban Metas are like the most compelling wearable I've ever seen and maybe the most compelling piece of tech I've engaged with since like a smartphone. But trying Orion, which is Meta's new AR glasses, was a really jarring experience.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Ideas are like one of the most challenging parts of creativity. It's not the technical ability. A lot of people can film and edit now. It's what the hell do I make? So taking apart the car, seeing the different parts, seeing how it all comes together, reverse engineering is a really great tactic in learning how to do something. But then you got to put it together in a different way.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
You got to put it back together in your own way. If you keep putting it back together in the exact same way, it's just uninteresting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
There's definitely merit to that. I think creativity is like looking through a kaleidoscope. You're just seeing different versions of light going through and getting changed around. I think there's a ton of merit to that. I think everything is a remix and I think you're constantly collaborating with your own inputs and things that you've seen. I agree with that statement, but I do think that
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, but it's challenging. Plain and simple, it's hard to break through on social platforms today. It's hard to break through specifically on YouTube. And a lot of that is because of the barrier that's very different from other platforms, which is the thumbnail.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I'm sure you've experienced this now with putting your podcast on YouTube is a totally different game than having your podcast in RSS feeds, right? Yeah.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's a very seamless AR environment where you're experiencing screens and calls, and you're experiencing the world in a very different way. Now, the reason I bring all this up, it's like obviously the world knows us as the YouTube guys, is we're always trying to think about how audiences will engage with content and storytelling and entertainment. And I think in the world of wearables,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
The first rule of YouTube that we talk about, and this is part of our, which I'm sure we'll talk about our new businesses, but it's part of our course called YouTube Playbook. But the first rule is just if they don't click, they don't watch. It's just a really simple rule of YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And, you know, what's hard about that is like you're talking about a medium like podcasting where you're the behavior of an audience member on like who's listening on Spotify is going to be actually completely different than the behavior of someone who clicks into YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And the challenge is as a creator, how do you not totally miss that audience that's like just down with your podcast to try and hook an audience in this new environment, right? it's really hard. And, you know, earlier we talked about exit velocity, like,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
you think about this world of like going to a movie, it would be really weird if you like walked into a movie, sat down and then like, you know, 30 seconds into the movie, you were like, yeah, this isn't for me, I'm out. But actually on YouTube, that's really common.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And like, if you retain 90% of people on YouTube in the first 30 seconds, you're like, damn, that was a really good hook, a really good intro. And if 70% of the people are watching after the first five minutes, you're like, holy smokes, dude, I'm like, we're really doing this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
thinking about that concept in the context of like a movie theater would be absurd if 30% of the people walked out of a movie five minutes in. But it's just the culture, like what YouTube is and how challenging it is to keep someone's attention. And so there's also the conversation around like, which environment do you create what content in?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Especially us as creators, when we think about, you know, we are YouTube creators through and through. We've been making YouTube videos since 2010, 2011. But we think about like, how do we balance our environments between permission and interruption? So, you know, YouTube is like an interruption-based platform. Like I have to interrupt your content
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
experience with a compelling title and thumbnail to get you to watch. Podcast feeds are actually permission-based as well as newsletters are permission-based. Because somebody has given you permission to give them that content, they're much more likely to spend time with it, give it a chance, slowly go into it. You have different... you have different levels of attention on every platform.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And so I think a lot of YouTube creators aim to, especially like YouTube creators like us who are more in the educational space or like thought leadership space, we try and get our audience as much as we can, the ones who want to give us permission to go from an interruption-based platform into a permission-based platform.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
like a newsletter or exclusive content on an RSS feed or an educational course. We want to get audiences into those environments. Or like a Patreon, right? Those are more permission-based environments.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah. So there's an abundance of ways to monetize, but I think the most important is that you think about it as like a value prop extension. So meaning like, what is my value proposition of my content? Who's the specific audience? What is the value prop? And then how do I extend that value proposition through what I'm offering? So-
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
If that does become a reality, I'd be curious to hear your POV on it. It does feel like some of these products are the first products we've tried that feel like, could this replace the iPhone in a lot of years from now? And if so, what does that mean for how people are watching things? Today... the share of watch time on connected TVs for YouTube has gone up dramatically.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
An example of that is, obviously, for us, our mission is to educate and empower the next generation of creators. So education being at the forefront, what's the value prop extension? Well, it's more education. And so that monetizing through education, through courses, we also have a big piece of it that's community focused.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So now we're moving into events where we have in-person events that people can come attend. And our newsletter is further education about what's going on in the world of creators. So everything is like an extension of that. Now, in terms of the primary way every YouTube creator makes money is advertising.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
That's going to be AdSense, which is just straight up what YouTube will pay through the platform RevShare. But then brand deals are typically the largest sum of every creator's income. monetization. And the same rules apply there of like value proposition extension.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So when we first started our show and it first started to get some traction, what we did is we wrote down every brand that shared the same mission. So every brand that we felt was like, which brands also educate and empower creators? Well, let's look at the brands that are offering software solutions for creators. Let's think about like Adobe. Adobe empowers so many creators.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Riverside is a sponsor of ours. They empower a ton of creators. So let's make a list of everyone who shares the same mission with us, and then let's go tell them our story. And that is how we got most of our first sponsors. Our first big sponsor was Samsung. They had the exact same mission. Hey, we think our new phones empower the modern creator. That's our mission too. Great.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's always a more natural fit in advertising than trying to like jam something in. And we've done that in the past too, right? When we first started out looking for advertisers, like it can be hard to talk about something that either you don't use or doesn't feel value prop aligned, right?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And so, you know, that's like the core of monetization is like, what is my value proposition and how do I extend that into either telling you about someone else that shares that value proposition or offering you a good or service that is connected to that value proposition as well.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
They're hard. They're hard to nail, right? Like, um, Throwing a good party isn't easy. And you actually have to think about how it functions, what it feels like, the venue, the food, the coffee. And Colin and I, our biggest bottleneck as entrepreneurs is taste. So like we have very specific taste. We're uncompromising with that taste.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Um, and I think that's actually across a lot of creators and creatives. It's like, taste is going to be your biggest bottleneck. That's probably going to limit us from building massive companies, but, uh, that's okay with me. Like I'd prefer everything to be on my taste. Um, But events have been also the most energizing thing we've done.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
The way we've thrown them, too, has been really, really cool. We don't mass promote them. We promote them exclusively through the Publish Press, our newsletter. So typically, there's an RSVP link at the bottom of the newsletter. It's like, hey, are you in LA? RSVP here. And that's been really cool because it's kind of like a if you know, you know.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
For our channel specifically, 58% of our watch time comes from connected TVs and viewers are watching on average 42 minutes on connected TVs. When we started on YouTube, people were watching on desktop. It wasn't really like massive share of watch time on mobile. And so you think about just like these devices are how we consume content. It's how we consume entertainment.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And we do these mornings called Coffee with Creators. And a bunch of creators show up. Typically, we have like 100 to 150 people creators and creatives show up. There's good coffee. You're having coffee. You're meeting people. We do fun, kind of moving the room around, doing prompts so people can talk to each other. And typically, we have a Q&A with a creator or some experience with a creator.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And what's been really cool is that as many as we can go to, because I enjoy it, Colin and I go, but we've also hosted these events in New York where we aren't there. And I think that's been some of the most exciting is recognizing that this does represent a community. This is like a community brand. And that opportunity for scale is super interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Being at one of these Coffee with Creators mornings, in my head, I was like, in the future, couldn't this be happening in LA, Austin, New York, and SF all on the same morning? Of course not. Um, that's a really cool future. Yeah. It's a really exciting future.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Cause I also think it's like, it's actually honestly transformational to like, I can see it on people's faces when I'm there that they're enjoying it and that it made a difference in their day, their experience, their career. And I think it solves like a real problem of loneliness and community and validation. And like so many of these human emotions that, um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
we needed when we were young creators. We needed to be around other creators and look at them and go like, this is hard, right? Or like, hey, what do you think I should do about this? I'm working with this brand and they're asking for too many revisions. Just even feeling the community around those problems is really impactful.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
My hypothesis about the future is that there will be a premium on inefficiency. So let me explain that. My wife and I went to go see John Mayer live at the forum in LA. And I went over there It's a pain in the ass to park. You buy this expensive ticket. You go in. It's kind of miserable. You have to go to the bathroom and it's really far. You get in.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And then John Mayer starts playing and he's like, it's super cool because he's riffing and playing his songs in a totally different way. He's singing them in a different way. And as I got in my car, we put on another John Mayer album. In my head, I was like, oh, putting John Mayer on on Spotify is the most efficient way to listen to John Mayer.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
But the premium is we will pay hundreds of dollars for the spontaneity, the inefficiency of getting into this room with a bunch of people and hearing him play it in a totally different way and verifiably human. So I also think about that as like a future, right? Of like...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
collective experiences that are verifiably human that don't necessarily value like incredible efficiency, uh, is, is really interesting because everything with AI is like, we're all talking about efficiency. It's more efficient to brainstorm with AI. It just is give me, you know, Hey, give me 10 ideas for a YouTube title. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Does the world of wearables suggest that if we now get this pass-through environment back, then maybe we're more interested in audio content that we can consume while we're doing other things? Are we down to have videos playing in that world? Of course, I'm talking about a very distant future. But that's what we're thinking about. It's like, where do...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
That happens more efficiently with AI than in a room with three other creatives. And as we go down and look at that, we do value efficiency quite a bit in work and business and as we continue going. But I think there's going to be also the inverse, which is the incredible value on inefficiency. So that's a very long-winded way of saying I agree.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, dude, of course. Of course, I don't think, is that like a hot take or like a theory? Because that feels like, it feels like relatively like squarely on the nose.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, I don't have the height to be like John Mayer. John Mayer is so tall, but he's like, he's super cool and smooth. And like to be able to sing like that, it'd be amazing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
You have a deep emotional connection. You had an experience. I think that's a really important part of the future. I think it's just more and more important.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I'm not hot on VR.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I'm not. And maybe it's also like... I don't know. I just think fully immersive experiences are very niche. Wearing an Apple Vision Pro and being fully immersed in an experience, I was like, this is, at least for me, it's not for me. I don't want to be fully immersed.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Wearing Orion and experiencing AR or mixed reality, I'm like, this is interesting because I'm still a part of the world and I can still look someone in the eyes, but I'm having a modern experience here. I think VR in the context of gaming, I think fully immersive gaming is interesting.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
The first thing I thought when I put on Apple Vision Pro was courtside tickets to the Lakers would be really cool if I could buy them through Apple Vision Pro and sit courtside and look around. That's really cool. But I just think full immersion is incredibly niche and probably won't take off.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I definitely think they will have that option, but I don't think like VR bulky VR headsets are going to be widely adopted. I just don't think so. I mean, it's probably also a stretch. Like if we see a world where wearable glasses are like widely adopted, that actually would be pretty wild. Uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
you know, like if everyone is wearing, it's, it's not weird for you and I, cause we like, I wear glasses as well. And we're in contacts right now. Like I've worn glasses my whole life, uh, to put on a different type of glasses. I'd be like, okay, cool. But people have never worn glasses. Like, I don't know. It's hard to imagine.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's, it's more, it's easier to imagine a world where it's like headphones and like a wristband or something, uh, you know, with the option to like put the glasses on.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Where do audiences move in the future and how personalized does content get to an audience?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Maybe. Yeah. But like, how, is that, I don't, I don't know. Like I, I have no idea when I, you know, I'm, I'm actually, my wife and I are expecting, we're having a kid in January and I've been thinking a lot about like, what does his life look like in 15 years when he's 15 years old? That'll be, you know, 2040. What does the world look like when he's 15 years old? Because when I was 15 years old,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I had a Motorola Razr. You know what I mean? I experienced the world. So much has happened in that amount of time. How unrecognizable is his life going to be like to me in 15 years as a teenage boy? I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. I try and sometimes just sit and think about it and go like, what the hell is that going to look like?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Can I, can I totally shift into pitching you a business idea and you tell me if it's a good or bad idea?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's one I've thought about for like a really long time and Colin and I have always talked about. So, um, we're, we're like, because we've spent most of our career, like in incredibly long editing sessions, um, we've always like experimented with different, uh,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
you know, like whether it's caffeine or like nootropics, like, uh, L-theanine or like, um, you know, stuff like, uh, um, there's these, these mints called neuromints. I don't know if you've ever, uh, like tried those. And basically it's like caffeine, L-theanine and B12, like mixed into a mint. Um,
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And it's always been a product we've been relatively passionate about, especially in the context of creators and creators being in our audience. Two different products. One is hydration, which has been wildly popularized by Liquid IV and Element and stuff like that. And then a nootropic brand like an AlphaBrain or... So just wanted to start there.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I've never explored CPG, but we've always talked about it in like, okay, we could literally have one at every episode. We could market this in the context of creativity and empathy with what our audience is going through. It's always been just like a very blue sky, like fun idea to talk about over lunch, but never, ever something we've actually explored.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, it's a good note.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, that's a good question. We've been heavily involved in a software called Spotter Studio, which is a ideation software for creators. It's really cool. Actually, the coolest part is that it exists now and we use it on a day-to-day basis. We just actually created a really dope thumbnail with it yesterday that now we're designing. So we're involved with that and that's been a really fun process.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I mean, honestly, that's my first experience with software, like truly with... even understanding what's possible in the context of software, like sitting with their team and being like, could it do this? So that's been really cool. And I think seeing like software come together has been a really powerful thing.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
So the short answer is like, mostly because as creators, our biggest problem is that we're opportunity rich and time poor. And so partnerships are always going to be like the cleanest way to get into stuff where it's like, we're not running a software company, but we're supporting and consulting and advising.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
but the uh you know the the push for us is into digital products specifically education the question is like can that can that type of stuff turn into can software be education um you know can that be an extension of what we're doing because i i i do think that sounds really really fun and really interesting and having this experience has been cool like i i'd never experienced anything like
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, totally. I agree with that. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, the biggest problem in the creator economy is operators. It will continue to be the biggest problem. People are growing and getting more opportunities than they can handle. And at the end of the day, we're still the arbiters of taste of our content. Some creators have really successfully scaled well and found people who can support their
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
their growth and expansion and keep the content engine running. But our first product is content. Our first customer is our audience. And the reality is when we wake up in the morning, that's what we think about. Everything else comes secondary. And so the challenge for us is to get to a point where we have support in that direction and we can go, okay, where else can we put our minds?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Potentially. I think that in terms of being directionally correct, it does make sense when you experience it. It's hard to explain if you haven't experienced it. But I think the primary thing is like, Using Orion felt like, both Colin and I said this, it felt like we got our hands back and it also felt like we got our posture back.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I mean, first and foremost, Colin and Samir, just check our YouTube channel out. That would be awesome. If you are interested in YouTube and starting a YouTube channel or exploring how to get better at YouTube, we have a new ideation sprint that's about to launch. Just go to colinandsamir.com slash ideas. And if you want to learn about the world of the creator economy, subscribe to our newsletter.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's called The Published Press.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Love that. Dude, congrats on this pod. This is cool. It's cool to see it picking up like this.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
A wise man named Tim Ferriss told me to bifurcate the two rewards you get from podcasting. The first reward is the conversation. Once the conversation is done, you should look back and go, that was an awesome conversation. I'm glad I got to have that. The second reward is the performance and the results of that episode and conversation. And so think about those as two different things.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
That has really helped me along the path because performance is an up and down volatile experience as a content creator. But the reward is just getting to spend time and connecting with people and sharing ideas. That's a really beautiful reward that you don't want to let go of.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I think there will be a moment in human history where we look back and go, that was weird that we were all hunched over these black rectangles all day. I think that will be something that we're like, huh, that's strange. And when I look at, like my dad, you know, is a lifelong entrepreneur and he started a company back in 1970 when he, 1976 when he landed here in the States.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And the photos of him working.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
for the future again if you look at where youtube is heading even with their announcements that made on youtube two weeks ago like that you can you can gather that they are heading in the direction of more and more connected tv viewership and you look at that it looks just like netflix so what the platform is is essentially signaling signaling to all creators is
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
are him sitting at a desk with a telephone and a bunch of papers. And you think about like, what does someone working look like today? It's like a laptop in front of them. That was not the case for my dad or our parents' generation. And so it's not crazy to think about for our kids when they start to work.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Like when I'm a parent of a 20-year-old kid or 25-year-old kid and he starts going to work, like, work probably looks totally different. Like the way he engages with technology is going to look totally different. And so that's like, directionally, it feels like it makes sense. But I don't know, like adoption is the biggest piece. I think like people being very
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
human beings being very conscious of like their image and looking into each other's eyes. And like, that's where the question comes in to play is like, will we actually adopt this type of stuff? But it like being there in the moment, you're kind of like, yeah, this makes sense.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
But experimenting with what? Like building apps for that environment or what?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, these are the Ray-Ban metas. And I wish you could hear the sound they just made when I put them on. But these are like the clear ones. It's pretty incredible to see like how much tech is in these kind of glasses now. And I don't know if you've, have you worn these?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Okay. It's pretty compelling, especially now they have like this feature that's like a look and tell me feature. Meaning like you can look at a building and go, hey Meta, look and tell me what this building is and tell me the history behind it, right? So you're using voice to prompt AI there. And I think like the...
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
The question in terms of when you talk about ad networks and when the internet first launched, that being a major factor, I think the question is the fragmentation of attention. So if we keep going down that path of going, there was a point when we were kids where there was a lot of monoculture. Whatever was on TV was on TV. That's what we all watched.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And if you think about today, if you're walking down the street and you look around, you're like, okay, all of these people on the street today potentially listened to a podcast this morning, but it's probably likely that none of them listened to the same one. And that's pretty wild. And maybe there's overlap, like maybe five of them listened to the same one or something like that.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
But when you extrapolate that further and think about like, wearables as well as AI, the question becomes like, how hyper-personalized does everything get to you? Is it actually that everyone can listen to a completely personalized version of a podcast in the morning or completely personalized experience through their own glasses? And then the question becomes like, what
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Do you serve personalized ads to each of them? What is everyone's experience like in a world of incredibly fragmented culture?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah, you're looking at your closet and it's like, you know what's missing? Yeah, totally. This Levi's jacket. Yeah, right? Like, you know what would go well with these pants that you're wearing right now when you look in the mirror? There's this really interesting software that I was sent yesterday called Notebook LM. Are you familiar with this?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
For people who don't know, I mean, this is as far as I understand it and how I used it, but essentially Notebook LM is a Google software where you can load in sources. So the example would be load in like, I loaded in three articles, one about the new Snap AR glasses, one about the new meta ones, and then one like just kind of think piece on the world of AR.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And it gave me a nine-minute podcast that was two hosts talking, essentially developing a podcast, using the source material about all these, essentially giving me a podcast about the state of AR, the difference between snaps, glasses, metas, glasses, and all the above. and it's compelling.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's not like it's, it's obviously you can tell it's AI, but it's, it's like, there's a moment where the host clears his throat. There's a moment where like the two hosts talk over each other. Uh, there's a moment where they like make little quips and jokes and segues. And so then I loaded in like our, um, we have a newsletter that we send three times a week called the published press.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And I loaded two issues of that in, and it actually edited down stories and, uh, made segues and made things that made sense and didn't make sense. And, um, it was a glimpse into a potential future when you think about, from a content perspective, you're like, I have a 20-minute commute and I want to know about what just happened in the world of YouTube.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
I want to know about the NFL and fantasy updates. And I also want to hear a takeaway from the VP debate last night. And you load those in and it's like, here's your podcast that's 20 minutes long, that matches your commute, that's personalized for what you just asked
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Um, that's a really, I mean, honestly, as a content creator, it's like a, a little bit of a frightening future of how hyper personalized can this stuff get? Um, and what does that mean for the future? If like, it's a more efficient way to get exactly what I wanted. Is that, is that actually a great experience for, uh, audiences?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Uh, is that actually something we're going to want, um, over long periods of time?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Yeah. We, you know, it's, it is challenging, right? Like competition is at an all time high for attention and like, that's like, it will continue to be more and more challenging to, um, not only capture someone's attention, but hold their attention. Like in a world of infinite opportunity, it's really hard.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
It's something that we call exit velocity when it comes to like short form content or long form content or a podcast. Like it's highly likely that there's some people who clicked on this, maybe thought it would be interesting for them and then left. And so we think about that as like this term exit velocity, like how fast does someone check this out and then leave?
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
And you think about like short form content, like a TikTok or YouTube shorts or Instagram reels has the highest potential exit velocity, right? Like someone is firing through those just going like, let me see the next thing. And you have to have such a compelling hook to capture someone's attention.
The Startup Ideas Podcast
How to build a creator empire in the age of AI and AR with Samir Chaudry
Now, I think YouTube and social and creating content for these platforms is very much like a video game. It's like solving an equation of how to capture attention, how to write a compelling hook. I think if you're doing that strictly for the currency of viewership and like...